Stratford museum extends Justin Bieber exhibit for another year

The Stratford Perth Museum has extended its Justin Bieber exhibit for another year.

“Even before it opened (in February), we were really caught off guard by the response,” museum general manager John Kastner said Friday. “We had online ticket sales and we ended up in a situation where the opening weekend was sold out.”

Since the Steps to Stardom exhibit’s first weekend, when fans from around the world lined up in front of the museum as early as 5:30 a.m., more than 18,000 people have walked through the exhibit, thoroughly smashing the museum’s previous attendance record of 11,000 in 2015 when the Anne Frank House exhibit was on display.

“I remember at the time (in 2015), someone said, ‘We’ll never have another year like that,’ and I said, ‘No, you’re right,’” Kastner said. “And now, I look at that and say, ‘Never say never.’”

Thousands of fans from around the world, and Bieber, have visited the museum for the sole purpose of catching a glimpse of the dozens of personal and professional items donated to the exhibit by Bieber’s grandparents, Diane and Bruce Dale.

To mark the museum’s influx of international visitors, six weeks ago Kastner began recording the geographical origins of the people who have walked through the museum doors, using a world map and a set of flag pins.

Nearly eight months after the Stratford Perth Musuem’s Steps to Stardom exhibit opened on Family Day weekend, visitors are still flocking to Stratford from around the world to check out the dozens of personal and professional items donated by Justin Bieber’s family and friends. (Galen Simmons/The Beacon Herald)

Since that time, nearly 250 visitors or groups of visitors have marked their home country on the map. Though many travelled to Stratford from other parts of Canada, the U.S., and Europe, some have come from farther afield.

“There wasn’t a day go by when we didn’t have somebody who made us go, ‘Wow, you’re from where?’” Kastner said. “…Yesterday we had somebody from Saudi Arabia. We’ve had people from Iran … Brazil and Chile. There was even a person from Siberia, which I think is incredible.”

And the influx of international visitors isn’t the only marker of the exhibit’s success. Kastner said the feedback from visitors has been overwhelmingly positive.

The exhibit has been so successful that when Kastner broached the subject of extending it into next year at a museum board meeting last month, those around the table approved his recommendation without question.

This February, on what will be the exhibit’s first anniversary, museum staff will unveil a refreshed Steps to Stardom exhibit, wherein as much as 30 per cent of what’s on display will be replaced with new items donated by Bieber’s grandparents.

The Stratford Perth Museum’s Steps to Stardom exhibit will be open until at least October, 2019. If the exhibit is still performing well at this time next year, Kastner said the museum board may again look at extending it.

For more information on the museum and its exhibits, visit www.stratfordperthmuseum.ca